


Sway My Way

by tocourtdisaster



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Community: jim_and_bones, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-13
Updated: 2011-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-15 18:31:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tocourtdisaster/pseuds/tocourtdisaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The celebration for <i>Enterprise</i>'s first successful diplomatic mission (which surprisingly does not involve any firefights, hostage situations, misunderstandings, or intergalactic incidents) is like nothing like Jim ever imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sway My Way

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from "Sway" by Bic Runga.
> 
> This was written for the Sweetheart Fic Exchange at [](http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/profile)[**jim_and_bones**](http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/). My prompt was _ASK ME: At an official Starfleet function, Bones has been watching as Jim dances with everyone in the room except him. He is feeling jealous until Jim finally asks him to dance, having saved the best for last_ to be written from Jim's point-of-view. [](http://cupidandpsycho.livejournal.com/profile)[**cupidandpsycho**](http://cupidandpsycho.livejournal.com/) used the same prompt to write a story from McCoy's POV, and it can be found [here](http://cupidandpsycho.livejournal.com/141642.html).

Their first successful mission doesn't involve any firefights, hostage situations, misunderstandings, or intergalactic incidents. In fact, it's so routine it's almost boring, just a simple mediation between two parties regarding their various trade agreements, but it still has Jim riding pretty high with accomplishment.

Oh, he knows it's nothing to brag about, but maybe after a few more successful milk runs like this, the brass will finally figure out that he can actually be a good captain to his crew and will start giving them the real assignments, the ones that include patrolling the Neutral Zone and initiating first contacts.

But, regardless of what they may or may not be assigned eventually, that doesn't mean they can't celebrate today, which is the entire reason Jim finds himself and his command staff at some sort of shindig to celebrate the successful re-signing of the trade agreements.

The sun's just starting to set, turning the sky a million shades of green and purple, and Jim can see half a dozen bonfires being readied and lit, the air redolent with the scent of burning wood, somewhat reminiscent of citrus and pine, but still completely alien. It's invigorating.

Jim's been told that the real celebrations will begin at full dark, so he and his crew mingle amongst the natives until then, exchanging cultural information, sharing stories and jokes, just getting to know each other and relax. Even Spock seems looser than normal, his arm pressed against Uhura's where they're speaking with the trade ministers.

For his own part, Jim speaks with as many common and lower-rank individuals as possible, trying to make himself as accessible as possible. His crew already knows that they can come to him at any time for whatever reason, but it doesn't hurt anything to try to spread that reputation around a bit.

Eventually, the sun sinks beneath the horizon and the drums start. It's a pretty basic beat, fairly slow, but people start to quiet down and find seats on the ground between the bonfires. Jim finds himself between Sulu and the daughter of one of the ministers and he picks out the rest of his crew seated nearby, Spock and Uhura a few feet from Scotty, Bones and Chekov a whole bonfire further away.

He meets Bones's eye and gives him a tiny thumbs up and a smile and Bones just shakes his head, but he can't hide his smile at Jim's antics, just as Jim had planned.

"We come together tonight to celebrate the successful renegotiation of treaties between our people," a voice rings out, the senior minister of trade if Jim's not mistaken. "We thank the Federation ambassadors for their part and bid them celebrate with us."

"Aye, aye, aye," rings out from all around Jim; everyone's left arms are up in the air and they're all making wafting motions with their hands, as if by rote. Jim takes note of the motion so he can recreate it for the cultural anthropologists, who he's sure will complain that not one of them was invited to the party, once they're back on board ship.

"Mother Sun has taken her leave of us this day," the minister continues, "and Father Moon is absent from the sky."

The people chant a phrase that Jim's universal translator either doesn't pick up or can't translate, their right hands joining their left as they reach for the sky from their spots on the ground.

"Mother Sun will return to us ere many hours have passed and Father Moon shall reappear on the morrow."

The chanted phrase is repeated as the people shift up onto their knees, their hands still raised towards the sky.

"This evening, free of both Mother and Father, let us come together as one."

The chanted phrase is repeated a third time. Everyone except the _Enterprise_ crew are now on their feet, swaying like grass in the wind. The drum beat that's been underlying the proceedings speeds up and the motion of the dancers increases as well. Several more drums join in and Jim's amazed by how well the dancers keep up with the ever changing beat.

And then it stops.

Jim's ears ring in the sudden silence, the crackle of the bonfires the only sound in the night. The dancers are frozen in place in whatever position they were in when the music stopped, some of which look rather awkward to Jim's untrained eye.

"Join us, friends," the minister says from just behind Jim's left shoulder and Jim pushes himself to his feet as the drum beat begins again. The rest of his crew is right behind him, Bones the last and obviously most reluctant to dance.

Jim watches as the natives grab each member of his crew and begin to spin and twirl and gyrate with them to the beat of the drum before he himself is pulled along by a young man. Jim does his level best to keep up, but he's never been much of a dancer and not particularly graceful otherwise.

After a while, he's passed off to another of the natives, an older woman this time. Jim thinks for a second that maybe her dancing will be slower due to her age, but he's proven wrong almost immediately as she pirouettes beautifully before attempting to get Jim to do the same. He counts it a victory when both he and his partner are still standing when he's done.

It goes on like that for ages, switching partners periodically and attempting to keep up with them. He's not sure exactly how much time has passed when the drum beat changes again and the dance slows.

"You are now free to pick who you will dance with," his current partner, a young girl, tells him. "But choose wisely. When the drums end, the one you are dancing with will be the one you leave with."

"And by 'leave with' you mean what, exactly?" Jim asks her, fairly certain of what she means, but he has to ask just to make sure he's not completely misunderstanding the situation.

"You will leave with your last partner and come together with one another in honor of Mother Sun and Father Moon," she says, and, yeah, Jim was totally right about thinking she meant sex.

"But we'll be coming together in private, right?" Jim asks, hoping he won't end up accidentally having public sex again. The exhibitionism was great last time; the verbal critiques during the act weren't so much appreciated.

"Of course," she answers and that decides Jim; he just won't dance with anyone who's not on his crew. They're all beaming back up to the ship at the end of the night; there's no way the natives will ever know they didn't have sex for the sake of the celebration.

Jim watches as his partner is fairly quickly snatched away and he grabs a hold of the first Starfleet uniform he sees, which happens to belong to Scotty.

"Oi, Captain, how's this for a party?" Scotty asks, his hips gyrating in some sort of weird rhythmic way that Jim can't look away from. It also makes Jim want to gouge out his eyes a little.

"It's certainly interesting," Jim says, not even attempting to mimic Scotty's dance, but settling for the kind of stand-in-place-and-sway that's gotten him by at various dances and clubs since the age of twelve. "Did you hear about the whole 'leave with your last partner' thing?"

"No," Scotty says, still with the hip thing that Jim's never going to be able to scrub from his brain. "What's it about?"

Jim quickly explains what he'd been told and ends with, "So we need to get to everyone and warn them to do their best to avoid dancing with the natives."

"You can count on me, Captain," Scotty says before twirling away and snatching Sulu right out of the arms of a very lovely looking lady. Jim stands still for a moment, trying to plan his best course of action. He's about to head out in search of Spock when Uhura spins right into his chest.

"Oh thank god," she says, grabbing his hands and doing a sort of shimmy that Jim _never_ wants to forget. "If one more person tries to get handsy with me, I swear I will start an interstellar incident."

"I guess that means it's best if you stick with the _Enterprise_ crew for multiple reasons then," Jim says, trying his best not to stare but kind of failing in that regard. Uhura is a damn good looking woman who obviously knows how to use her hips. It's distracting to say the least. "When the drums end, you're supposed to take your partner and have some horizontal dance practice in honor of Mother Sun and Father Moon."

"That's fascinating," she says, obviously channeling her inner Spock. He's not sure how she does it while swinging her hips around like that. "You have realized that someone's going to be left behind since there are seven of us here?"

"Shit," Jim says, letting Uhura spin him around, ducking to get underneath their joined hands, not even really noticing her other hand against his waist, gently leading him exactly where she wants him to go. "Maybe we can convince them that a threesome is a perfectly valid sexual permutation for humans."

"Good luck with that," Uhura tells him, taking her turn at twirling beneath their upraised hands. "I'm going to find Spock and stick with him." And then she's spinning away so gracefully that Jim almost forgets that he needs to find the rest of his crew.

Scotty and Sulu are still awkwardly bopping together and Bones is a few bonfires away, somehow making a foxtrot with a diminutive man look natural with the beat of the drums backing him up. Chekov is a few meters from Bones, being aggressively led by a very tall woman and looking slightly intimidated by her.

Bones can handle himself, Jim knows, so he goes to rescue his navigator first. "Excuse me, ma'am," he says when he reaches them, placing his hand on Chekov's shoulder, "but I really must cut in." Before she can so much as try to protest, Chekov has latched onto Jim and dragged him around to the other side of the bonfire.

"Oh, thank you, sir!" Chekov sounds fairly winded and very grateful. "I did not think she would ever let me go."

"That's probably because she wanted to have you for dessert," Jim tells him, nodding his head to the increasing beat of the drum.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"Look, go find Scotty and Sulu and stick with them," Jim says, suddenly urgent in the wake of the quickening drums. "They'll explain. And for god's sake, don't let anyone stop you." He points Chekov in the right direction and gives him a shove to get him going.

"Aye, sir!" Chekov tosses over his shoulder before he begins to duck and weave through the throng of native dancers.

Jim glances to where he'd last seen Bones and feels his gut clench when he doesn't see him. He can't have gotten far; it's only been a few minutes since Jim saw him last. He heads in that direction, hoping with each step that he's going to see those gorgeous shoulders filling out that familiar blue uniform, but there's nothing, only the gray and green and brown of the natives.

There's a hand on his shoulder and Jim spins and finds himself face to face with Bones. "Looking for someone?" Bones asks, smirking like it's the funniest thing ever to have freaked Jim out so completely.

"Yes, actually, have you seen him?" Jim says. "About yea-high, best ass this side of Andoria, wearing blue?"

Bones scoffs and shakes his head, pulling Jim towards him until there's barely any space between their bodies, his left hand grasping Jim's right, his right palm pressed flat against Jim's back. Jim brings his left hand up to hold Bones's right elbow, as close as he's going to get to a proper dance position.

"I was wondering when you'd work your way around to me," Bones says, guiding Jim through the steps of a basic waltz using nothing but gentle pressure from his hands to get Jim to where he wants him. It's strange to be dancing so calmly to such a frenetic drum beat.

"There was a bit of a situation," Jim tells him, resisting the urge to look at his feet. He'd waltzed with his mother at her wedding when he was seventeen, so it's not like he's never done it before; it's just been a really, _really_ long time since he's done it and he'd been the one leading last time.

"Oh, and what sort of situation is that?" Bones asks, leaning in and speaking directly into Jim's ear and sending a shiver straight down Jim's spine.

"Oh, just trying to prevent accidental copulation between the crew and the natives," Jim answers, pulling the same trick as Bones; he's rewarded by Bones pulling him even closer.

Bones opens his mouth to reply, but before he can speak, the drums stop and everyone freezes. After a moment, a voice rings out, "Go now and continue your celebrations as Mother Sun and Father Moon would have you do."

With that, couples and groups of three and four wander away from the bonfires hand-in-hand. Jim pulls away from Bones, but doesn't pull his hand from the other man's grasp. Spock and Uhura are a few feet away and Jim can see that just their first two fingers are wrapped around the other's. Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov are wandering towards them, arms slung over each other's shoulders.

"We good to go, then?" Jim asks once everyone's within earshot. "No one got roped into joining in with the natives?"

"It was a close thing at times," Chekov says, laughing a little. "I almost did not make it to Mister Sulu and Mister Scott."

"Had to physically pry a couple of ladies off of him," Scotty says with a grin. "But we managed to save him."

"Good job, then, gentlemen," Jim says. He looks at his crew, his friends, and sees the same contentment in their faces that he's feeling and he can't help but smile. He catches Bones's eye and winks, squeezing his hand and tugging him closer to his side.

Jim pulls his communicator off his belt with his left hand since the fingers on his right hand are occupied with being wrapped around Bones's and flips the device open. "Kirk to _Enterprise_. Seven to beam up."

The last thing he sees before they dematerialize is Bones's smile.

  
 **End**   



End file.
